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Linkblogging for 01/03/09

At Lib Dem Voice they’re wondering if the Fuhrerprinzip is now the basis for governing Britain. For all the fuss being made about the obscene amount of money that Fred Goodwin is getting in his pension, the fact is that it’s his money paid into his pension scheme, and that this is how our current economic system works. If you don’t like the fact that a retired usurer gets more in a year than my wife would get in sixty years working full-time in her job as a nursing assistant (and, as you can imagine, I don’t like that fact one bit) then try to change the system rather than singling out scapegoats.

As some of you may know, scans_daily, a livejournal community based around posting scans of comics, was recently closed for copyright violation after the comic writer Peter David complained. Chris Bird has the best take on this. Speaking of comics, I’ve recently got a sense of ennui about comics – there’s plenty I’m reading that’s pretty good, but nothing that’s grabbing me and insisting I write about it. I’m sure that’ll change when Seaguy 2 comes along, or Morrison’s return to Batman but in the meantime do any of you (Mindless Ones? ) have any suggestions for exciting four-colour adventure with enough in it for me to sink my teeth into writing about? In the meantime, I’ll post some more on Cerebus and some other old ‘art comics’, but the genre stuff is more my forte…

Bloggingthemail here eviscerates a column from Amanda Platell in the Mail saying fat people shouldn’t be treated on the NHS. As a fat person, I think Mail columnists shouldn’t be treated by public *or* private doctors, for the good of the species, but thankfully I do not have a column with several million readers from which to propound this view. Ms Platell, alas, does…

Bryan Hibbs has seen the Watchmen film, and from the review it’s clear that this was *exactly* the film I expected them to make, except that the new ending is even stupider than I thought it would be. Seriously, if you go to see this film, you’re an idiot. It couldn’t possibly be good.

I’m finding most of my ideas are bouncing out of Captain America just now, but Brubaker’s a pretty hard writer to approach directly; pretty much poles apart from Morrison, just finished (5 months ago) a 42-ish mega-epic on the book… but in terms of craft, he’s practically invisible; it’s remained a – you know, always sounds faint praise – solid, consistent favourite, always near if not actually at the top of the list. He fairly accurately predicted the housing crisis therein, it’s interesting particularly as a Brit to see the American approach to their ideological enemies/other superpowers.

I also just reread The Winter Men and will probably work something up about Russians sometime, don’t hold yr breath; but Jesus, that book is good, I was reading it concurrently with Watchmen and frankly, it came out on top – maybe an unfair comparison because one is 23 years old and the other recent, but still. Might be hard to get hold of, if you’ve not got it already though.

Might not be quite what you’re looking for, or you might already know about it (it’s recommended by Neil Gaiman), but Gunnerkrigg Court is really good, and the first volume has just come out in print after lots of delays.